His head jerked up and he looked down at her to see her warm brown eyes filled with tears. Filled so full, they spilled over, gliding down her temples into her hair.

“Sweetheart, what the f**k?” he whispered and when he did, she lifted her head, shoved it in his neck, her arms and legs getting tight and she began to sob. As in sob, body wrenching, breath hitching, moans tearing up her throat.

Jesus.

He pulled out. It took effort and not a small amount of time since it seemed with her actions Dusty wanted to burrow into him, for him to absorb her into his skin but he got his jeans adjusted and his shirt off. Then he forced her arms in the sleeves and got two buttons done at her br**sts before she plastered herself against him, face buried in his neck, ass in his lap, arms around him in a death grip.

He slid the fingers of one hand up and down her spine soothingly, the fingers of other gliding through her hair as he twisted his neck and whispered in her ear, “Angel, get a handle on it long enough to talk to me. Tell me, what’s wrong?”

“Da…Da…Darrin,” she sobbed into his neck and her body reared with another hitched breath. “He’d be so…so…ha…happy!”

That was not what he expected her to say. Then again, he had no f**king clue what she was going to say.

Mike’s hands stopped moving so he could circle his arms around her and he whispered, “Dusty.”

“He…he…wanted us together sah…sah…so bad,” she continued blubbering. “And he did…did…didn’t live to see it. In…in fact, him dying is why it happened.”

Jesus.

Mike’s arms got tighter and he kept whispering in her ear when he said, “Honey.”

She jerked back, looked down at him, her face red, her eyes wet, the trails of tears still tracking over her cheeks. “I know I’m weird!” she cried. “Talking about my brah…brah…brother after sex but he would, Mike. He would be happy.” She pulled an arm from around him and dashed a hand across her cheek so clumsily he feared she’d do herself harm but luckily she stopped, took a long shuddering breath and kept talking. “Not the sex part because he was kind of conservative but the you and me part.”

“He wanted us together?” Mike asked and she nodded fervently. “Why?”

“He read my diaries, Mike!” she exclaimed then collapsed against him again. “And he knew you were a good guy.”

Well, that would definitely explain it, at least the diaries.

She’d ratcheted it down to sniffling so Mike moved his hands on her soothingly again, giving her some time before he murmured, “My girl, takin’ everything on, she hasn’t had time to deal with her own shit.”

“No,” Dusty mumbled then sniffed.

“You need to give yourself time to grieve, Angel,” Mike advised.

“When?” she replied. “There is no time with my bitchface sister, budding teenage romance, shadowy, nefarious businessmen lurking and Rhonda baffling science by being the first case of a walking, talking, cooking, grocery shopping coma patient.”

He shouldn’t, he knew he shouldn’t. But his body started rocking with laughter anyway.

This went on a while before Dusty muttered, “This isn’t funny.”

He knew she wasn’t pissed because her words held a smile but Mike calmed his laughter and gathered her close before he said gently, “No, darlin’, it isn’t. But you are.”

She snuggled deep and fell silent.

After a few moments, she whispered, “I miss him, Mike. He used to call once a week, sometimes twice. And I…well, I just miss him.”

“Yeah,” Mike whispered back wishing there was more to say, magic words. But there just wasn’t.

She took in a stuttering breath.

Mike held her close and Dusty held him close right back.

After a while, he dipped his chin and asked softly in her ear, “You want me to clean you up and put you to bed?”

She didn’t answer verbally, just nodded, her head moving against his shoulder and neck.

At her answer, Mike lifted her up, straightening from the couch and he walked her to the bathroom. She leaned heavy into him as he ran a warm cloth between her legs.

This was something else Mike had never done with any woman. With Dusty, he didn’t do it every time, not even often, but he did it. And each time he did it, he found it profound. This was because the woman he held was a woman who could take care of herself but when she was with him, she trusted that to his care. That was a gift but with this act, so intimate, it was more. It was treasure, precious and it never failed to move him.

When he was done, he carried her to her bed. He took off his jeans. He left her in his shirt.

The minute he joined her in bed, he pulled her close even as she burrowed deep.

In the dark, staring at the ceiling, tangled up in Dusty, Mike asked, “You wanna talk?”

She shook her head against his chest.

“I think the beer, tequila, mechanical bull, witnessing an alpha badass in action times two, hot sex and a crying jag took it all out of me,” she replied and Mike grinned.

“That shit happens.”

Her voice held a smile when she muttered, “Yeah.”

“Rain check,” he whispered, “Call it anytime.”

He figured she’d eventually accept his offer but right then she just sighed.

“Sleep, Angel,” he ordered gently.

She sighed again.

Then she whispered, “Yeah.”

He fell silent.

She did too until, “Mike?”

“Right here, sweetheart.”

“Love you, babe.”

Mike’s chest got warm and his arm around his woman got tight.

Then he whispered, “Love you too.”

She pressed closer and within minutes fell asleep.

Seconds after that, Mike followed her.

*

It was Monday morning. The bags were packed. The boxes taped. The agent had been through the house to add it to her rental listings. There was a shitload more work to do but Dusty’s manager was going to see to any of it that had to do with the pottery, Jerra any of it that had to do with Dusty’s personal shit and Javier anything that had to do with the horses or the land.

Good employees, good friends. They had her back.

They’d had breakfast with Rivera, Jerra and their two loud, crazy kids who definitely took after Mom and Dad and were supposed to be in school but were out to say good-bye to Auntie Dusty. Now the kids were chasing each other on the sidewalk, Jerra and Dusty were hanging on each other, quietly talking and barely holding back tears.